Spotless Group

Solutions used

Spotless Group Migrate to Lync with no Downtime

When preparing to move 600 people into new headquarters and on to the Microsoft Lync platform, Spotless identified its IT helpdesk as a mission-critical function that needed to be working in the new premises on day one.

Enghouse Interactive Communications Center (formally Zeacom) allowed Spotless to bridge its old and new telephony platforms, ensuring that critical services like the IT helpdesk were able to provide uninterrupted support.

Background

Spotless Group Limited is an international services company specialising in outsourced facilities management and a major supplier to the London Olympics.

Spotless needed to move 600 people into new headquarters in Melbourne, Australia – which meant major upgrades to IT and telephony infrastructure. During the transition to the new offices, scheduled to occur in a pressured four week period, Spotless’ 15 year old PBX would be replaced with Microsoft Lync.

In preparation for the move, the IT helpdesk was identified as a mission-critical function. The solution had to address the specialised call queuing and reporting needs of the helpdesk, which supports the SAP-based payroll function and ensures that over 40,000 workers are paid accurately and on time. The IT team needed to be confident that it could transition seamlessly from the current PBX to Microsoft Lync, and that the helpdesk wouldn’t miss calls during the move. Getting it wrong could severely impact Spotless’ workers and service levels.

Even more importantly, EICC, which inter-operates with both Lync and Spotless’ existing PBX, offered a low risk migration path for the IT helpdesk. By providing a ‘like for like’ replacement, ZCC gave Spotless the option of using a hybrid solution during the office move, following which it could rollout the full Lync migration at its own pace.

Although the IT team planned for several scenarios, they knew the best way to prepare for the unexpected was to draw upon the expertise of their suppliers. A cross-discipline professional services team from Enghouse, Microsoft and partner Kloud Solutions was on hand to ensure fast trouble shooting and issue resolution.

Spotless migrated their IT helpdesk staff to Lync at the same time as they moved to new premises, with few issues, and now support this critical part of their business on a single infrastructure – with no need to maintain their existing PBX.

Benefits

EICC offered Spotless greater flexibility during its migration to Microsoft Lync, providing the freedom to decide in what order different operational functions moved, based on business need rather than being driven by technology options.

Deploying EICC to bridge the different telephony platforms ensured that the IT helpdesk remained online throughout and was able to provide uninterrupted support for business needs including payroll and accounts receivable. At the same time, compatibility with Microsoft made training simple and hassle free for users.

Brady Cox, Enghouse’s VP of Business Development, says “It’s essential that during telephony migrations people control the technology and not the other way around. At Spotless we showed the strategic role of EICC in providing a neutral, low risk migration path between traditional and new telephony platforms, supported by our people whose subject matter expertise was instrumental in ensuring a successful upgrade.”

Spotless now plans to roll out and connect its strategic business applications, SAP and Microsoft Lync, to drive additional productivity gains and improve the customer experience.

“We had a deadline of 4 weeks to move 600 people, including our helpdesk, from a 15 year old PBX to Lync. It got really tight, but Enghouse Interactive’s work ethic was exceptional.” Geoff Dumesny, Infrastructure Programme Manager, Spotless Group.